1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a transport system for transporting hollow articles formed of plastics material, and more particularly to a transport system for transporting various kinds of such hollow articles in large quantities from a manufacturing factory or a warehouse of the articles to the place where they are used for bottling, goods-charging, packing or packaging or for other purposes, or where the articles are stored to be used for such purposes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, in case where hollow articles, such as containers, dolls, etc., made of plastics material, such as polyethlene or other thermoplastic synthetic resin, by blow-molding are transported for such purposes as aforementioned, they are transported by means of vehicles such as trucks after they have been packed into bags such as vinyl bags and then into boxes such as cardboard boxes.
Such a way of transport requires not only steps of packing the hollow articles (hereinafter called "plastics articles") into the bags and into the boxes, but also a step of loading the plastics articles on the vehicles, a step of unloading the plastics articles therefrom and a step of opening the boxes and bags, thus requiring much labor and time. Further, the amount of the plastics articles which can be loaded on a vehicle is considerably limited, since they are packed into the boxes which are bulky, so that the amount of the plastics articles which can be transported at one time is considerably small and the transport efficiency is very poor. Furthermore, as a large amount of expendable supplies such as vinyl bags and boxes are required, the total cost required for carrying out transport of the plastics articles becomes considerably high.
In view of the foregoing drawbacks and inconveniences, a pneumatic transport system comprising a pipeline through which the plastics articles are pneumatically conveyed in a non-packed state has been proposed to be put in the place of such an inefficient conventional transport method. In the conventional pneumatic transport system, however, no effective measures have been employed to protect the plastics articles during transport and/or storage thereof. As a result, during transport and/or storage of the plastics articles, they are often caused to be permanently deformed by external forces applied thereto and/or by thermal expansion. In addition, they tend to be charged with static electricity, and their outer surfaces are often abraded while they are pneumatically conveyed through the pipeline of the system, thereby causing fibrous or thin fabric-like plastics pieces to be produced. In case where the plastics articles are containers for foods, abrasions of their surfaces cause the commercial values of the contents to be deteriorated. Moreover, a problem of environmental pollution will be caused by production of such fibrous or thin fabric-like plastics pieces as waste.